Month: January 2022

Major payments app WeChat to add support for China’s digital yuan

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WeChat, China’s largest messaging app and one of the country’s most popular payment services, will start supporting the Chinese government’s digital currency. On Jan. 6, 2021, Tencent announced that it will begin accepting digital yuan payments via its proprietary mobile wallet WeChat Pay, according to a local news report. China has been developing a digital yuan since 2014, and it has yet to be implemented nationwide. If people start paying for goods and services with WeChat, which has more than 1 billion users, it will give it a significant boost.…

What Can You Buy with Bitcoins?

When we talk about buying things with bitcoin, many conjure up an image of a black market filled with shady dealings, off-the-record sales and illegal products, or billionaires in search of luxury yachts and private jets. In reality, the list of goods now available to purchase with bitcoin is long. Source

Why Use Bitcoin?

Satoshi Nakamoto originally created bitcoin as an alternative, decentralized payment method. Unlike international bank transfers, it was low-cost and almost instantaneous. You’ve probably heard that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and all the hype around them as being the “future of finance.” The primary philosophy behind Bitcoin was to create an electronic payment system that would not rely on a third party or central authority for confirmation, settlement or issuance. In addition to eliminating third parties, bitcoin transactions were touted as being irreversible, immutable and relatively cheaper than traditional payment options. Compared…

Pocket Network, Arweave, and Livepeer

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—  By Vargason, CryptogramVenture FoF Research Fellow Before the rise of blockchain, Web3.0 can only stay in the concept stage due to the lack of solutions. With the development of blockchain technology, a number of Web3.0 related projects have emerged. According to the Web3 Index compiled by web3index.org (a website that tracks protocol usage across the entire Web3 stack), in the past 30 days, the revenue and other comprehensive indexes of Pocket Network, Arweave, and Livepeer ranked among the top relative to other projects. Pocket Network is currently the Number…

Polygon network activity spikes as NFT sales reach new height

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The number of nonfungible tokens (NFT’s) sold on the layer-two protocol Polygon reached an all-time high last month at just short of 2 million.  According to Dune Analytics, this marks a near 60% rise in comparison to November and the third consecutive monthly increase for the network. An Ethereum-based scaling solution seeking to construct, distribute and manage securities on blockchain technology, Polygon’s ecosystem has grown exponentially over the past twelve months, registering in excess of 3,000 decentralized applications on its network, in addition to a total value locked figure of…

Ethereum plunges 13%, down more than Bitcoin after Fed spooks crypto market

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Ethereum’s native token Ether (ETH) plunged sharply hours after the U.S. Federal Reserve released the minutes of their December meeting, showing that they eye a faster timetable for hiking interest rates in 2022. The minutes showed that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is in favor of raising short-term rates “sooner or at a faster pace than participants had earlier anticipated.” According to the CME Group, trading in the interest-rate futures market showed a two-thirds possibility of the first increase in March. Ether turned lower after the minutes were released, dropping by…

Billionaire Ray Dalio recommends ‘reasonable’ 1%–2% Bitcoin allocation

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Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio remains bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) in 2022, listing three primary reasons why Bitcoin is “impressive.” In a recent interview with The Investors Podcast, he talked up gold and BTC as an inflation hedge. When prompted by interviewer William Green about what a sensible allocation for a layperson would be, Dalio said that he agrees with fellow billionaire Bill Miller’s suggestion that 1%–2% is the right allocation. He explained that the network has never been hacked; it has no better competitor; and BTC adoption rates would suggest…

Hong Kong real estate giant leads $90M raise for crypto bank Sygnum

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Sun Hung Kai, one of the largest property developers in Hong Kong, continues betting on the cryptocurrency industry by investing in Swiss crypto outfit Sygnum. Sygnum officially announced Thursday that it had closed a $90-million Series B round led by Sun Hung Kai, a real estate giant and alternative investment firm in Hong Kong. According to Sun Hung Kai executive chairman Lee Seng Huang, the company has a strategic vision to expand its fund management offerings into digital assets. “Amidst growing institutional demand and regulatory oversight of this sector, Sygnum,…